Can't Go Back
by frogginator
Summary: Hurt feelings and pent-up anger cause a showdown, and Mousse and Shampoo both find themselves facing the question 'can you go back...?'


Can't Go Back  
By/par: Frogwoman  
  
Disclaimer: I didn't create these characters, they aren't mine...I do believe they're Rumiko Takahashi's. Sorry...  
  
Rating: PG (emotional content. *snif snif*)  
  
Author's Note: I haven't seen the show or read the manga...so I'm going by everyone else's fanfics to know what they're like! Anyway, sorry if anyone's extremely out of character...I hope they're not.  
  
Summary: Closure. If you can call it that.  
  
  
Can't Go Back  
  
  
He sat on a park bench having a breakdown. His breath came hard and sharp like a knife in his chest and he ran his hand distractedly through his hair, pulling, pulling so hard his scalp was going numb. His left leg jerked with the adrenaline and panic rushing through his system. Crooking one finger he stuck the second joint in his mouth and bit down on it until he was close to breaking his own skin.  
  
"I-I didn't...tell me I didn't..." he whispered, removing his finger from his mouth. It hurt to bend it. He stood and kicked savagely at the bench, "I want to die." he mumbled.  
  
Then the tears came.  
  
Like rain, his fear and pain poured from him in tears and rib-wrenching sobs. He fell to his knees, then sat and hugged his knees, sobbing so hard he couldn't see or reason. His hair fell in his face, the long, smooth strands sticking to the tears on his face as he cried. A pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses fell from his forehead and onto the cement. The glass broke and lay in sparkling shards at his side. The glow of the moon reflected off the pieces and he lifted his head. The glow was like a warm, soft circle of blurry light on the ground beside him. He sobbed again, a sob so hard it broke from him, sharp and tearing. There were no tears left to cry.  
  
He reached one hand down to take his glasses only to find they were broken as the glass sliced his fingers open in about four places. The tears came again and he lay his head on his knees, his bleeding hand resting on the ground. Soon a shallow red puddle surrounded the broken glasses. His fingers stopped bleeding and started to scab over.  
  
Still, the tears came.  
  
'I want to go back, I want to go back, I want to go back...' his mind screamed over and over. He lifted his quivering hand again, bringing it to his face to touch the darkening bruises on his face. He couldn't go back. Ever.  
  
The things he'd said to her.  
  
He hadn't hit her, he would never hurt her like that. He wasn't capable. But he had to get away from her. His heart was dying piece by piece and he couldn't stand it anymore. He had been turning into a person he hated, being eaten away by jealousy and hurt and anger. Stewing in his own juices. Turning into a hateful, hating person who cared about nothing but getting her.  
  
He doubled over, clutching his stomach, and threw up onto the cement, then ran a quivering hand back through his hair. The delicate new scabs opened again and he had blood in his hair and on his face. He sat silently, staring into nothing, mind not functioning.  
  
He wasn't sure he would ever be the same as the innocent three-year-old who'd fallen so hopelessly in love so many years ago.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
She flew around her room, kicking and screaming and burning up in furious anger. The anger, like a gasoline fire, consumed her and she destroyed everything in sight, everything, focussing with special vengeance on anything he'd given her, or that held any meaning that had to do with him.  
  
She kicked a candle off her night table that he'd given her.  
  
Scooped up a vase containing a rose he'd given her and threw it out the window, shattering it. She heard the vase break on the street below and the startled exclamation of someone on the sidewalk. She didn't care.  
  
"I'll find you and kill you!" she screamed at him through the broken window, beyond caring that he couldn't hear her, wherever he was. Someone said a rude word from the crowded street below.  
  
She didn't care.  
  
"I don't care about you." she whispered, "I don't care. I never loved you. I never loved you. I hope you never come back." She wasn't sure if she was trying to convince herself or just trying to get back at him, even if he couldn't hear her.   
  
He'd called her a heartless woman. He'd asked her why she was so cruel to him. Told her that he couldn't love her anymore, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much he tried. He told her he was dying inside, slowly and painfully and that he couldn't stay, and he was leaving on his own.  
  
If she was heartless then why was she hurting so bad? She fell on her bed, sobbing, her anger gone like a short-lived, superheated gasoline fire. Her tears soaked her pillow, the front of her shirt and her hands, and still she cried.  
  
If she hadn't loved him then why was it that all she wanted was for him to come back with a rose and apologize as he had so often before when he did something to offend her?  
  
Her chest contracted and wouldn't expand again. Finally she forced air into her lungs and breathed in some of her own violet hair. She coughed and sat up, her hair everywhere. She wasn't used to crying and the tears seemed to burn her face like acid. The pain was staggering. It hadn't ever hurt so bad, her heart. Never. The pain was like someone had studded her chest cavity with nails. Every breath stabbed like a million knives.  
  
She wanted her rose back. She wanted the rose he'd given her. Her heart burned and she choked on the air again. Running a hand back through her hair to straighten it, she walked down through the restaurant she had had the sense to close before the fight had erupted, and out the front door. She searched along the sidewalk until she found the shattered vase in a puddle of warm water. She scooped the bruised rose out of the water and cradled it against her cheek for a moment, the water from the vase mixing with the tears running down her face.  
  
"Come back." she whispered, "Come back."  
  
But she knew things could never be the same again.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Seven years passed...  
  
  
The violet-haired girl stood silently at the doorstep of the restaurant, broom in hand, staring at the stars and wondering. She sighed softly, searching the street in front of the restaurant, searching for his innocent face and square shoulders as she had every night since he left. Her pain had died down to a dull ache in her heart that only came around when there was a wedding in town she was invited to.  
  
Then he was standing there, silently staring at her. She almost called out to him, almost asked him to come to her, but then she saw his eyes.  
  
Their light had left. They no longer shone with his strength of emotion. He was impassive, shoulders slumped, broken and drifting like an injured ship at sea. He wore no glasses but his eyes focussed on her. He must have gotten them fixed somehow. His hair was still long, tied back with a leather thong at the nape of his neck, but he no longer wore his thick, baggy-sleeved robe.  
  
Slowly he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and opened his eyes again. The light had come back on inside him, and he tipped his head respectfully to her, turning to walk away.  
  
"Stop." she whispered. He looked at her.  
  
"What?" he asked.  
  
"Do you still love me?" she whispered.  
  
A flicker of something ran through his face, "I always will." he whispered.  
  
Then he turned and left.  
  
- fin  
  
  
Author's Note: Okay. Yes, I know. Sad. Probably too sad. *shrug* Sorry. I had to do it. It's closure. Anyway. Any comments, criticism, complaints, flames,commendation...anything. It goes to:   
frogwoman_66@hotmail.com 


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